The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories - Aunt Granny Lith by Chris Offutt Summary & Analysis

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Summary

Aunt Granny Lith begins with Beth picking up her drunk husband from a bar. She remembers back to when they were first married. Casey, her husband, had been married twice before, but each of his wives had met with a violent death. One day, she sees something in the woods and tells her husband, who confesses that once, while playing a joke game with his friend as a child, he accidentally proposed to an old shriveled woman who lives in the woods, and that she seems to think that she is now his rightful wife. Beth talks to her mother, who tells Beth that her husband has to sleep with her for one night as a token of good faith, after which he should be allowed to go free. He does it extremely unwillingly, but takes to drinking afterwards.